I wounder if this applies here, fire marshal often gives us in-services at work he is a really funny guy. Anyways he poses the question "Code Red in the building whose safety is more important, yours or the patients?" Almost everyone is quick and correct to answer "well your owns of course" Then he asks "what about a code blue?" Almost everyone the first time they are asked this question answer "The Patient comes first" . Nope. The answer is the same as t he first question... You can't help anyone if you yourself need help.

Yes Yes Yes...a Pandemic is coming it has been coming since the last one 1918. When we have this new Pandemic, yes a Pandemic will be coming again.

Kilt5 you do not help by posting "A Pandemic is Coming" because that is what this whole Forum is about...A Pandemic is coming Avian Flu or something else. You are being repetitive, now if you could tell us what is coming now and we could do more prepping that would be helpful but are you just posting this to get attention.

Look KiWi mom and Techno make good points. I am not sure why Christians are always the target to blame that we do not take care of all ills. Christians will have to take care of their families too.

No Government will be able to take care of a Pandemic that is why we are all here. We will have to take care of ourselves and yes I am a Christian but will I go and take care of my fellow man...no everyone will have to take care of themselves. But am I a bad person or a bad Christian because I do this...I think not. People who live in glass houses should not cast stones. Kilt5 will you be taking care of contagious people around you or will you stay home and care for your family? I bet you will not, but do not cast stones at Christians just because you think we are easy targets.

Yes a Pandemic is coming big deal many will die some will live just what happens. I have prepped but will it make a difference maybe yes maybe no. At my old age I believe what my grandma said about death, The Old Must, The Young May.

Try a different more helpful subject Kilt5 like what to do when a Pandemic Hits.

Hey Flumon - all I did was post an article.

Number 1 - a pandemic is actually coming

Number 2 - most people don't care or don't believe it and so don't prep

Number 3 - the H7N9 and or H5N1 will be like Hell has opened its gate

I think an article that states it clealy is a great thing - people have been warned and just go back to sleep

Kilt5, I agree with you. And I'm glad this discussion happened, it's been enjoyable.

I like your second point about people not caring or not believing and I would expand that point to include the fact that a potential threat for many people is just too scary to contemplate and so they bury their heads in the sand and pretend like it will never happen.

We have a perfect example happening here in NZ with the relatively recent discovery of one of the world's largest earthquake fault lines and the now proven regularity of it's rupture, normally accompanied by a huge quake. This fault line runs straight through the middle of a town called Franz Joseph, and even though public meetings have been arranged with all sorts of experts to help the towns people to prepare, almost no one turns up. The problem is too immediate and right underneath them and not one building will survive the next quake which is now officially overdue.

I feel it's the same with emergency preps. We can all manage to prep for a bad winter storm because we know it's limits and that it will only be a temporary inconvenience. We can see the storm coming and we get plenty of warnings on the news, right down to the exact timings and severity of it.

But a pandemic is a different beast: it will turn up one day but no one knows when, we won't be able to see it coming because by the time we hear about it, it will already be here or just around the corner, and when it is here, we still won't be able to see it, hear it or smell it and so everyone and everything will become a source of potential infection. And this scenario is just to scary for many people.

I don't think it's a case of not caring or believing, it's more, they just don't have the," something," I don't know what you would call it, the ability to cope with the thought,they might spiral down, I once told my apprentice about a pandemic and gave her the book "the hot zone".she nearly had a break down thinking about it,

It's like the Spanish flu,everyone has heard about the 1st and 2nd world wars,the Spanish flu, killed more yet it is wiped off the collective memory of most people,they can deal with guns and bombs,but a "flu that kills millions" most can't get their heads around it,trying to explain a flu mutation to people I work with, is like trying to explain cosmology.....

Preppers are a small portion of our population. If you worked in schools you would see that this country and the world is doomed if a real pandemic hits. We now have people who do not even purchase their food at the grocery store they get it delivered to their homes and with the provided recipe they make dinner. You think these people have even 3 days worth of food in their house.

Then we have people like my sister who she or her husband go every day or everyother day to purchase their food. My sister thinks I am a nut for having the freeze dried and dehydrated food I have. I have gotten her to get extra food when we have had a few good scares with flu but I don't even do that now because those senarios did not get bad. Now she really thinks I am a real nut.

So how do we as preppers get others to pay attention...NO WAY! There is no way to get people unless Mormons to believe like we do and prep. So it will be some of the Mormons and some of us, and the ones who are naturally immune and there will be some that may survive a pandemic.

But to think we can get people to care that a pandemic is coming is wishful thinking.

Almost everyone seems to be in denial. Those of us who prep are seen as nutters.

It is actually very unlikely that "The Big One" or "The Slate Wiper" will happen in our lifetime; but I would rather prep and not need it, than not prep and get some nasty surprise.

A decade ago my mum was nearing the end of her life and my immediate family and I moved in with her to provide care. Because her circulation was bad, mum needed constant heat. There was a big unexpected power cut, the first for decades. Undaunted, hubby and I fetched a couple of primus stoves from the garage, boiled water and provided heat and a heat reflective blanket. On went the candles and lanterns and we cooked dinner on the makeshift system. I had packed away everything, washed up, and provided all needed medical care for both her and my disabled son before the able bodied neighbours had even managed to order a take away.

Mum thought I was nut to prep - up until that point. I went on to cook her a foraged meal that spring; she thought I would poison myself! Not so, obviously. later she kept asking for a repeat menu as the giant puffballs we cut slices from were so good!

My mum was pretty bright and had lived through a world war. Being Irish, she knew all about the potato famine and the diaspora it provoked. If she denied the possibility of unexpected disaster, what hope for the rest?

All the neighbours learned from the incident was to come and ask me in times of crisis.

LOL, my sister is 800 miles away no problem with her. Some of my good friends who I have tried to get to prep do know I prep but I have told them I will shoot them if they show at my door. I have no problem shooting them and they know it. As my mother says she raised bitches and she is proud of it. I am a nice person daily but if TSHTF I will protect myself and my son.

The only people I will help are the ones who can help me. I have a few of those in my circle of friends but I can only help so much if things are long term bad. People just believe everything will be all right every day and that is true for my almost 70 years but that can change in a day.

My view on prepping is kind of why I choose not to buy health insurance. I seldom go to the doctor. So I am totally willing to pay cash for any basic routine medical services I need. Insurance would only be to my benefit in catastrophic circumstances. The problem is any insurance that I could afford would only pay 80%. If I had massive hospital bills.... that 20% I still have to pay will still bankrupt me. If you are totally bankrupt does it matter if you owe $100,000 or $500,000 if you no way to pay? So I choose not to buy insurance.

When it comes to prepping... in a truly catastrophic situation I doubt that your supplies will make all that big of a difference. In small disasters if you are smart you should be able to figure out how to survive as you go along.

LOL I think I just had a revelation. If you do prep, I think how you prep your mind matters a LOT more than how you prep your material supplies. Have a way to defend yourself, something to barter with, and the knowledge of how to get the supplies you need and you should be good.

If you think of most people's preps as being the standard we're told to keep at hand (72 hours seems to be the norm), then I totally agree. But I think you'll find many peppers have gone way beyond that and could survive on their stockpile for weeks, if not months. That would be significant in a major disaster. It's entirely up to you, but I refuse to be the person sitting in a dark house, hungry and thirsty while I wait for someone else to come to my aid. In a truly catastrophic situation, your rescuers would be no better equipped to help you than their own loved ones. Prepping beforehand is the only strategy that makes any sense.

"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep""Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.

The longer your preps cover, the more disasters they cover you for. The really big ones will have no rescuers - EXCEPT POSSIBLY YOU! I plan to be the rescuer, at leat of a few.

Preping your mind is a big part of it. Amassing knowledge, facing up to things and developing skills which aid in a disaster all count. Dont laugh, but from a Pagan to a Christian, your faith does too. It gives you strength inside - where it counts most of all. mine sustains me when everything else fails.

Learning how to defend yourself, basic medicine, how to farm, find water and hunt all help. Smithing, basket making, sewing and a gigantic list of other skills eventually become necessary, more than one person could do, so a small, cohesive group is a good starting point.

Hubby and I even play "the game game" when out on journeys, where we pretend to shoot any game or escaped livestock. Every third bang is a kill and the day's winner is the one who achieves the most meals. It is amazing how much it improves your hunting skills - and it's more fun than pub cricket.

When it comes to prepping... in a truly catastrophic situation I doubt that your supplies will make all that big of a difference. In small disasters if you are smart you should be able to figure out how to survive as you go along.

DeepThinker, I fundamentally disagree with this statement you've made. Having a months worth of food and water, medications, pet food and $500 in cash in your house could be the difference between life and death for you. You say that a smart person should be able to survive as they go along but have you ever been in a severe emergency situation? People are scared and frightened people make poor choice and have irrational actions.

I live in the South Island of New Zealand on the outskirts of Christchurch and I witnessed, first hand, the earthquake swarm that killed 185 people in 2011. I went to the supermarket, when it reopened to witness the chaos. There was no electronic payment available, cash only. And almost no one had any cash. Water was being rationed to 4 bottles a person (and that was person present in the store, not sitting at home waiting for you return with water for them). I used my water ration to give to a woman from the city's eastern area which was the worst hit, who was there with a baby and a toddler. I have 50,000 litres of filtered drinking water at my home in tanks and a well.

Most shops were shut, power was out, roads damaged, sewage pipes shattered and the cell phone network was down. People were really frightened.

The saving grace for us was that our earthquakes were localised and the rest of New Zealand came to help us. Also teams came from 42 other countries around the world to assist in finding people trapped in buildings.

There is an ongoing advertising campaign to warn us that we are now officially overdue for a huge quake on the Alpine Fault that will disable the whole of South Island and the bottom half of the North Island. We've actually been told that some rural communities will be cut off, on their own, for 6 months. They will have to rescue themselves and feed themselves.

It is a frightening thought - almost overwhelming - when you start to prep, but you have to start small and build up. Just getting a months worth of food that you could eat straight from the packet or tin without cooking may well save your life.

And if you are reading this and thinking that you don't live near a faultline / volcano etc, then think again. A disaster could involve a flood, tsunami, snow storm, pandemic, terrorist alert. No where is immune from a localised disaster that could affect your supply lines. It's all well and good to glib about such things, but trust me, if you are trapped in your home with no food or water, or with just crackers to eat and nothing at all to feed your dog, who hasn't eaten for 3 days, what are you going to do? Expect your neighbours to feed you? Good luck with that.

Personally I don't hold tons of stockpiles because I live on a farm and have food all around me including dairy cows and chickens. But I could feed us out of our larder for about 2 months, no problems. I recently added 2 weeks of foods that we could eat straight from the tin, in case we were too ill to milk the cow or cook anything.

Prepping needn't be a big money thing. Add 5 tins a week to your shopping list, or more if you can afford it and your stock will quickly grow. My advice would be to make a list of what you need for a week, and buy that stuff, and when you have a week's worth, then buy another week's worth. Don't make a list for six month's worth and spend the first few weeks stockpiling 60 tins of tuna, because if disaster strikes sooner rather than later, you'll be fine for tuna but stuffed for everything else. It's better to have a small supply of everything rather than a huge supply of one thing.

We were going to move to Dunedin, and we flew down from Auckland where we were living at the time, and were amazed to see that Dunedin has hardly any trees. It looks just like Scotland. We ended up coming to Christchurch, the garden city, but since the earthquakes, the city is still devastated with huge tracts of the CBD devoid of any buildings whatsoever.

Enjoy your trip though. It is very beautiful here. Any road map will show you all the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit filming locations. They're all over the place. I took my children to Hobbiton last year (in the north island) and it was amazing.

Prepping is a combinations of everything: having supplies on hand, food and items stocked to live on, medical supplies, the ability to protect yourself, the ability to hunt, fish, grow your own food, sustain yourself and your family if needed. If an emergency comes and you think you can just go out and purchase what you need you will be sadly mistaken. If you have ever lived near the coast and gone through a hurricane warning you know the grocery stores are wiped out several days ahead of time of pretty much any type of food, water, drinks. Then if a storm does come through, it's prolonged, trucks can't get through to make deliveries to the grocery stores, stores have no electricity to keep foods cold, or to run registers I have seen them using calculators to add with, so you still can't get basic supplies. Plus you're are also living without utilities. Where I live now, the slightest weather report of ice and snow and there is no bread and milk at the grocery store, lol.

I think that preppers who go to extremes stand a much greater chance of survival than the rest of us. Even if their supplies only enable them to keep to themselves and off the radar for an extended period of time and allow the rest of the world to fight amongst themselves. When those preppers finally emerge, they may well be the last man standing.

Personally I don't have the resources to prep like that, and I don't have the storage space as I live in a small house. What interests me particularly is that 150 years ago, a person without a years supply of food was a burden to their neighbours and family and seen as irresponsible, and yet now they are seen as weird survivalists. The only way the early pioneers in America, New Zealand, Australia survived and thrived was because they hauled sacks of wheat berries and salt around with them on their travels.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou can create polls in this forumYou can vote in polls in this forum